A professional development program for artists who are ready to raise their practice to the next level, The Center Program offers the unique opportunity to develop new work, receive feedback from art professionals in the field, and work towards an exhibition at the Art Center. Over the course of eight months, a supportive peer network, guest artists, gallerists, critics, and professionals push 20 Center Program artists to answer tough questions and evolve their practice. Guest curated by educator, organizer, and Center Program Alumnus artist, Silvia Gonzales, the exhibition will introduce strong, new work that often determines bold new directions for local artists.
About Silvia Gonzales
Silvia Gonzalez is a multi-disciplinary artist and educator in Chicago creating spaces where collective wellness takes on critical dialogue, art making, and community building. Her visual and audio work are a ballad to nostalgia–the borderline between myth and memory. Silvia has curated and facilitated workshops to address structures of power, imagination, play, confinement, and freedom. Her work has been exhibited at The National Mexican Museum of Art, Woman Made Gallery, Hyde Park Art Center, ACRE, and local grassroots art spaces. She is a member of the Chicago ACT Collective, Multiuso, and the 96 ACRES Project. As an organizer for the group POC (People of Color) Artist Space, she connects artists of color from across Chicago to resources through meet-ups and development opportunities. She fiercely believes in the power of people, poetic intervention, and possibility.
Her teaching and community arts-based programming include workshops for spaces such as Woman Made Gallery 20 Neighborhoods Project in Albany Park’s Centro Autónomo, The Jane Addams Hull House for Cities of Peace, Northwestern Academy, The Art Institute’s Ryan Education Teacher Programs, Street Level Youth Media, Gallery 400, Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Hyde Park Art Center, and as a full-time educator in Chicago’s public and private school settings. She was awarded with the 3Arts Make A Wave Award in 2018 and the CAC + OtherPeoplesPixels Maker Grant in 2020.
